


Into the Open Air

by LasbelinaronEva



Series: Wicked Grace and Sucking Face [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Kissing, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28418103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LasbelinaronEva/pseuds/LasbelinaronEva
Summary: Devastated after being dumped in the swamp, Ellana Lavellan comes back to Skyhold and breaks down in a certain roguish dwarf's arms.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Inquisitor/Varric Tethras, Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Wicked Grace and Sucking Face [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081352
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Into the Open Air

“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” Ellana Lavellan asked meekly. All the moisture in her mouth had suddenly escaped, and yet she wondered how it felt to drown.   
“It depends what you think I am doing,” Solas replied softly. 

“I think you are dumping me after taking me to a musty swamp, manipulating me to lose my Vallaslin--something I actually took pride in, by the way-- mere DAYS before we face the biggest threat known to all life!” Ellana explained, her conviction growing with each word until she was nearly shouting. 

He smiled bitterly, almost imperceptibly. “I would not have phrased it in such a way, but, yes.” 

Ellana frowned deeply. She stepped towards Solas and attempted to hold his face in her hand, but he pulled away. While the two stood mere inches apart, they were at a distance too great for any mortal arms to amend. 

“Why?” Ellana asked, studying his face for any clues. “Are you…” she thought for a moment. “Are you afraid we are going to die? If you think it would be easier to face death with no ties to anyone, trust me, it’s not.” 

Solas shook his head. “Inquisitor, it’s--” 

“Oh! It’s back to Inquisitor now, is it? How professional! The apostate clown has manners!”

The words stung Solas, but he maintained his composure, albeit through cloudy vision. “Ellana. I never meant to hurt you.” 

“You should have thought about that. I would think that a fool always so stuck in his own head would have been able to consider the consequences of his actions a little better. But I guess not.” The words flew out of her mouth so effortlessly, they surprised her. Whenever she had been this mad before, she would never have spoken her mind so freely. But this Inquisition business had made her bolder, and she had never really noticed the change until now. 

Silence fell between them. Ellana’s mind was racing, but she knew her ponderings would do her no good. She knew once he made up his mind he would scarcely change it, and insulting him further surely would not help her case. 

“Leave me. One of the scouts will escort me back to Skyhold.” Ellana said finally. She did not want to travel back together. It hurt enough as it was.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Sometime later, Ellana found herself back at Skyhold. All she wanted to do was go to her quarters and sleep until it no longer hurt. She crossed the hall towards her room, and she heard a familiar voice call out to her. 

“L! We were starting to think you got lost on your way back!” 

She whipped around to make eye contact with Varric, and she almost crumbled instantaneously. Keep it together, Lavellan! Varric approached his friend and saw her sadness immediately.   
Reaching for her hand, he mouthed, “are you okay?” 

Ellana could only manage a twitch of her head as she began backing further into the hall until she, at last, reached the door to her quarters and fumbled it open, maintaining eye contact with Varric, using his gaze as stitching to keep her together. In a swift panic, she vanished into the doorway and ran up the stairs. Once she was safely in her room, she collapsed on her bed. Wrapping herself in her blankets, she came to the upsetting realization she could still smell him on her sheets. Without thinking, she brought them to her face and inhaled the soft scent of spicy petrichor and old books. Home. But just as she could not return to her clan, she could not return to him. She rolled off her bed and slumped onto the carpet, where she laid and stared blankly out of her balcony window. 

“You’re being weird. Are you sure you’re okay, L?”

Ellana jumped as she turned to see her dwarven friend standing in her doorway. He approached her and got down on the floor, mirroring her position perfectly, such that their gazes were aligned. 

“What was your first clue?” Ellana managed finally. 

“Well, when he came back without you, that was a pretty big red flag. I thought maybe he had committed regicide.”   
Ellana rolled her eyes. “That might have been more merciful.” 

“That bad? Well, shit.” 

Ellana cracked a small smile. She had made many dear friends during this mess, but among her best was Varric. All her greatest spells could not top the magic that was his ability to make her laugh on the darkest of days. 

“He took me to a swamp and dumped me. So, yeah. That bad.” Her lower lip trembled.

“Days before we face Corypheus?” He asked, incredulous. “Wait, what happened to your, uh, face tattoo things?”

She broke eye contact and pretended to be fascinated with the paisley pattern of the rug. “He told me that they were markings of slavery and that I should let him remove them.” 

“What? Really? Do the Dalish know that?” 

Tears welled in Ellana’s eyes as she softly muttered, “they get a lot wrong.”

Varric paused, not knowing how to respond. While he was no stranger to heartache, he could offer no advice. His heart burned with the desire to barge down into the cur’s dwelling and enact revenge. Kick him in the privates, splatter white paint on his precious murals, slip an herb with a flatulent effect into his tea, something. Normally, he would have liked nothing more than to just stay out of other’s affairs, hell, he scarcely wanted to be involved in his own. But Ellana was the type of friend that would make you want to be more than you’ve ever been. He had endearingly dubbed it “the Inky effect”. 

“When I was still in my clan,” Ellana began, stirring Varric from his thoughts. “There was this guy. He was so sweet and had this beautiful golden hair...anyways. He was in our hunting party, and quick with a bow.” 

“But could he shoot a crossbow?”

She exhaled air through her nose in a subtle attempt at laughing. “Probably nowhere near as good as you can. But I loved him. I couldn’t breathe without him, or so it felt like that.” 

“Damn, L. I never saw you that puppy-like with Solas--” 

“Stop interrupting!” She laughed, lightly pushing his shoulder. 

Varric smiled nervously and gestured to her to continue. 

“It wasn’t long before we were betrothed. Sure, the match was a little unusual, but both our parents and the keeper approved it wholeheartedly. I was so excited…” She trailed off, tracing the pattern of the rug with her fingers.

“What happened?” Varric asked.

“Well,” she sighed deeply, “the night before our ceremony, I found out that he had been unfaithful. Word travels fast in a clan, and soon it was like I was the butt of some cruel joke everyone knew the words to but me.” 

Varric could offer nothing but a sad sigh. “I’m sorry that happened.”

“It’s in the past, what can I say?” Ellana shrugged. “But my point is this: why do we continue to choose people who don’t choose us back?” She quickly returned her eyes to his, finding that pain was splattered across his face. Ellana broke eye contact and began listing, “Bianca...Hawke…”

“Woah woah woah L. What do you mean ‘Hawke’?”

“I see the way you look at her. You love her.”

Varric scoffed and batted at an imaginary insect. “She’s got what’s-his-name.”

“Bianca has a what’s-his-name too. Doesn’t mean you don’t love them.” 

Varric paused and frowned, knowing she knew him.

“I mean, after all, I knew I couldn’t let her stay in the Fade because I knew how much she means to you.”

Varric sat up dramatically, his eyebrows furrowed in question. “Hold on...you made a life-or-death decision based on how I would feel about it?” 

Ellana sat up and shook her head. “Not entirely,” she admitted, “but it did play a role…”

“L…” Varric trailed off, considering carefully his response. He wanted to admonish her, tell her that it was foolish to make such a heavy decision with some silly little surface dwarf in mind. He couldn’t praise her either-- it was a foolish decision and they both knew it. She should have made an unbiased, well-informed decision. But then again, who can make the perfect decision in as little time as that one had to be made in. 

“Embyr, Solas…” Ellana listed again. Tears welled in her eyes and she began to cry. Through gentle sobs, she repeated the question, “why do we choose people who don’t choose us back?”  
Varric never really knew what to do when someone was crying. He recognized that Ellana letting him see her like this was a gesture of trust, but he didn’t feel any less awkward about it. He opened his arms as a subtle invitation for a hug. Ellana all but lept into it, and Varric found himself clasping his arms tightly around her small body. 

“You deserve to have someone choose you back, Ellana,” Varric started, deliberately using her entire name. “One day, I promise, you will find that person.”

“You will find that person, too,” Ellana whispered.

“Oh, L...I think it’s too late for me.”

Ellana stopped crying and pulled away from Varric’s chest to look at his face. She cupped it in her hands and she brushed his cheeks with her thumbs. Something swelled inside of Ellana and she lurched forward and planted a deep kiss on his lips. She pulled away to see the shock on her friend’s face. Varric seemed to process this action for a long time, and the two sat there in the dense air the tension had created. 

An apology hung on Lavellan’s lips, but before she could speak it, Varric put his hands on her back and head and pulled her closer than the two had ever been before. Ignoring the (albeit small, but ever-present) voice of reason in the back of his mind, he returned her kiss tenfold. Ellana leaned into it and the two sat entwined for minutes more until they both pulled away, dizzy from what they had just done. 

Ellana could only stare at Varric, speechlessly batting her sky blue eyes in disbelief. She still loved Solas with every deep ache of her chest. So why did Varric’s lips bring her so many different feelings? Was it possible to love more than one person at a time? She found herself greatly nauseated by the prospect. She needed to focus. No open wounds, no tangled feelings, nothing that would take her eyes off her one main goal-- save the world. 

While she was lost in thought, Varric had gotten up off the floor and was slowly making his way out of her quarters. 

“Listen, L, I...Inquisitor,” Varric stammered.

There was that formality again. 

“I need to focus on putting an end to Corypheus once and for all. I know, Varric,” she finished quietly, avoiding his eye contact. 

“Exactly. We can continue working through our mangled hearts AFTER we make sure there’s a world to do that in.”

Ellana nodded, gesturing towards the door. “I’ll see you later, Varric. And...thank you. For listening to me ramble.”

Varric cleared his throat, chuckling a little. “Anytime, L. Oh, and for what it’s worth...I think you left someone out of my list.”

Before Ellana realized what he had meant by that, he had already vanished.


End file.
